


a rosary for remembrance

by Tariel_H



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dealing With Loss, Death, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tariel_H/pseuds/Tariel_H
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>time doesn't heal all wounds. (sam doesn't learn that until much, much later)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a rosary for remembrance

He wasn’t supposed to love him, but Sam does, and the feeling is light and easy as Riley’s cockeyed grin—like when Sam’s finally coaxed him into the air and they are free. That grin is sharp around the edges with a pleasure so pure that Sam feels it, he does, this is them and they— they are invincible.

(Disparate and diaphanous, that’s what his memories are now, all tinged beige with slashed crimson in the wake—what’s worse? Never living? Remembering? Not being there when the world fades to hell or watching, watching with wide brown eyes as your world is blasted from the sky, watching your world tears at the seams and implode on itself?) 

…

Sam doesn’t remember the day his father dies, only that the air was hot and the mess hall stank and Riley’s hand was firm on his thigh. His mother’s letter, he wanted you to have this, a rosary wrapped in the lilac scent of his mother’s perfume, and sudden the pervasive heat of the desert air runs cold on his skin.

Sam doesn’t cry. He flies hard and fast and long till he hopes he reaches the end of the world—then maybe he’ll just fall off the edge of the crystalline sky, make this stop, make it all stop. Riley, of course, is there, watching his back, and holds him steady when he comes back to the ground and his legs are too weak to carry up.

(They are walking back to base and Sam accidently looks up, at the shimmering star and silver scintillations of light reflected against the blackness of the night, millions and millions of them—Sam stumbles back, collapsing in the sands that slip through his fingers— filled with the crushing feeling so utterly small and insignificant that his chest tightens—

He puts his hands in his head and weeps until the sobs are simply chocked, dry heaves that leave him gasping, and it doesn’t feel better yet. (He doesn’t learn until later that it never does. It never feels whole again, but you solider on anyways, because you have to.)

Riley is there, too. Hovering. Letting him be. Sometimes, sometimes, there is nothing to be done.)

…

When they’re given leave, Sam doesn’t go home. He sends his letters and love and ‘tell Nina how big she’s grown, give Ma a kiss, make sure you take care of yourself, but he can’t go back, not yet.

(When Riley dies, he doesn’t go home, either. He rents a car and drives and drives till he reaches the Grand Canyon, doesn’t think about his stomach dropping out frm under him, doesn’t think about flying and the cool air of sky, the orange color splashed along Riley’s cheekbones when Sam kisses him. He drives and drives, stopping when it’s too much, and slowly by slowly teaches himself how to breath.

He’s not ready to remember what it feels like to loose someone.)

…

Sam remembers grim faces and firm hands as they wade through the small tragedies. Out of their unit, only two make into the Falcon program but only makes it out alive, and there’s a horrible sort of symbolism to that which makes his chest tighten with an all too familiar grief.

Sam remembers too—promises muttered in hurried grief, the brushing of their hot dry skin together under the weight of a million stars. It only happened once in the darkness of the desert. It’s never repeated.

(He does not remember the names of the people he saved, their faces fading. He cannot remember their stories, their triumphs or heartbreaks, but he remembers acutely the feeling of looking down at them in his arms and seeing the wide eyed adoration. He makes up for this in the VA. They have all lost so much, and he remembers them now, names tattooed against his chest like it can make up for everything. It doesn’t.)

…

Sam remembers, now. Six months, a year, then two. Six months, a year, then two, and Sam learns that it will never be enough, but he is a solider, and is very, very good and squaring his shoulder’s, and simply getting on with it. Sometimes, sometimes, there is nothing to be done.

(It’s what they would want.)


End file.
